Sewing, knitting, cooking.

Time for stitching has been scarce the last couple of weeks, but I have finished the second branch of panel 1 for the vine quilt. This quilt seems to be progressing very slowly! Saturday night I had a spurt of enthusiasm and prepared all the leaves for the next 2 branches.

More preparation with the start of the next block for Friends of Baltimore.

There has been some secret sewing happening too. More on that later...:)

Last week a young friend and his wife welcomed their first child. Tiny blue booties for a precious little boy.

My annual hot cross bun cook-a-thon has begun. :) I make the traditional fruit buns, but recently started making chocolate hot cross buns also.  There is a batch of chocolate dough rising in the kitchen at the moment. (a little sweet....even for me a true chocoholic!!). I love my fruit buns, with just a little butter. :)

Recently I went to a lecture by An Moonen, from the Netherlands, based on her book The History of Dutch Quilts. The afternoon was well organised by the Quilt Study Group Victoria and Somerset Patchwork and Quilting and it was very well attended.
An is extremely knowledgeable and was able to identify a quilt as being Dutch from one small triangle of  Indian chintz fabric sewn in the quilt. (the owner has previously believed the quilt to be English)

This photo was taken early one morning when the air was still. It is of a branch of a huge gum tree in our back yard. You may be able to see the blossom and the bees. While I was taking the photo the the bees were very busy gathering pollen and the air around the tree was full of tiny blossom petals raining down. The sound of magpies warbling completed the picture of a beautiful Australian morning.